Page 29 of Pretty Little Assassin

“Hey!” Donnie pushes his glasses higher onto the bridge of his nose. “It wasn’t my fault that he was able to bypass my super-tight security system.”

He shoots Viktor a look that is a mix of both irritation and reverence.

“Just because he had a scary code name did not automatically make me assume he could actually hack into my shit.”

“So, what you’re saying is that you’re impressed?” Viktor lifts an eyebrow from where he’s still standing near the door like some sexy Russian guard dog.

Zero ignores them and continues as if there isn’t a strangely fond pissing match playing out in front of us.

“I wasn’t able to find much.” Her brow furrows.

“That said,” she continues. Her lips press together, and I can feel the slightly tenser, more determined grip of her hand against the top of my shoulder. “I did find a few useful threads.”

Viktor’s body language shifts. He leans a bit further into the room to hear what Zero has to say.

“Your stepfather isn’t working alone; that much we already knew. He’s managed to build quite a little infrastructure for himself within the criminal underworld. Additional power dynamics are at play here. Alpha crime lords have always used omegas as bargaining chips and bait, but it would seem that infrastructure is now being used for something else as well.”

“Hunting down the omegas that I’ve helped.”

Madam found me shortly after I got myself out of that house, and gave me a purpose. She's never once let me see her face, and she's never once missed my birthday.

“So where does this put us?”

“We have some faces, some names, a few leads that point to how your stepdad is pulling strings behind the scenes. But what we need is a chance to corner the head bastard himself.”

Zero’s hand lifts. She paces, kicking energy drink cans out of her path with the toe of her boots. She doesn’t like loose ends. Neither do I.

“Cornering the new head of the Primacy isn’t an easy ask,” Viktor chimes in as if he’s installed himself on our team without asking for permission.

Zero stops pacing and glares at him.

“Don’t you think I fucking know that, you big ogre?”

Viktor says nothing but grins widely.

“What the fuck is he doing?” Zero is no longer pacing. More like standing in front of a stupidly grinning Russian assassin and wondering whether she finds him amusing or whether she wants to choke him with her bare hands.

“He’s grinning.” I roll my eyes so far back into my head that I think I can see my own skull. “It’s apparently part of his arsenal.”

Donnie looks rapidly from one of us to the other. Eyes darting at hyperspeed because caffeine doubles as jet fuel.

“So are we all just going to—” Donnie’s sentence is immediately interrupted when the door opens.

10

VALENTINA

Viktor’s got Alley Cat face-down, arms wrenched behind her back, before her Doc Martens even cross the threshold. She yelps—a sound that’s almost cute, if you ignore the teeth that sink into Viktor’s forearm a heartbeat later. Rainbow tights flash, powder blue tutu flares, and she bites down hard enough to draw a curse out of him.

Zero bursts into a rare bout of laughter.

“Stand down! Stand down!” Donnie yells at them both without lifting his butt from his computer desk chair. “Alley Cat, this is the Wraith, and he’s apparently on our side for now. Wraith, this is Alley Cat, and I’d suggest washing that bite mark sooner rather than later. And a tetanus shot. There’s no telling where her mouth has been.”

Viktor releases her and stares at Alley Cat as if he’s trying to figure out why a nineteen-year-old omega dressed like a child has managed to bite him.

“This little psycho is part of your team?” he asks, rubbing his arm and visibly debating whether he should wash it.

“Compliment received.” Alley Cat adjusts her crooked tutu, walks in, grabs a stale piece of Donnie’s pizza, then plops down on a near-dead-looking sofa under the window.